The Top Trends and Challenges of Content Marketing

Slowly but surely, the need to justify the value of content marketing is beginning to fade; for many marketing strategies, content is becoming pretty standard. With that said, however, we are far from being content pros. It’s one thing to do content, but are you doing it right?

According to a recent infographic based on data collected by Eloqua, LookBook HQ, and Oracle, the current state of content marketing is one of extreme confusion. While most marketers have embraced content—93 percent said they produce content in-house— many are struggling with it.

And it’s not that marketers aren’t grasping important content marketing tactics. The top three content trends include delivering real-time content based on behavioral patterns, making content visual and engaging, and sharing useful content.

The problem lies in the content creation process.

According to the data, the top three challenges faced by content marketers include:

Increasing audience engagement

Creating enough targeted content

Creating enough content

As it turns out, content might be king, but for some he’s ruling a rather melancholy land.

If these are the weak spots in your content marketing efforts, don’t fret. There are ways to improve the situation.

To increase audience engagement with more targeted content, you first need a thorough understanding of your consumers. The best way to do so? Create a detailed buyer persona, which provides critical information about a target audience, including demographics, motivations, goals, challenges, and more.

When you have a better understanding of your ideal customer, it enables you to relate to them as real humans (a silly issue when you really think about it, but a struggle for businesses nonetheless) and create content on topics you know they’ll be interested in. And the more you create targeted content, the more your consumers will interact with it.

If you’re struggling with creating enough content, the answer is somewhat simpler: Get help. Too often, marketers assume they can launch a content strategy and either write blog posts whenever they have spare time (which, let’s be real, doesn’t actually exist for marketers), or up until the ‘campaign’ has ended. Unfortunately, neither of these scenarios supports an effective content strategy.

Content is referred to as a Beast for a reason; it needs constant sustenance in order to be successful. So you’ll need to convince the C-suite that it’s time to hire an agency that specializes in content creation (*cough* like us*cough*) or an individual who can dedicate all of his or her time to creating content.

Additionally, content needs to be a constant element of your overall marketing strategy, not a short-term campaign. When you start creating content, your audience will expect it again and again. If it stops, so too will your beloved audience engagement. And you don’t want that now, do you?

While it may seem as though content is a lot more work than you originally thought, remember that it will be worth it in the end.